Tonight I was talking to a very good friend of mine about the recent Lactnet posts about WIC (she's in nursing school and can't keep up with Lactnet right now, so occasionally I fill her in).

Her response to the thread about WIC and breastfeeding promotion was that perhaps some moms are less motivated by the food offerings of the exclusive BFing package because they don't know how to utilize all of the foods they are given. As a new mother, she was on WIC and was a bit overwhelmed by the extra beans, milk, and eggs. She didn't have much cooking experience at that point, so a bag of beans didn't really register as that fabulous, you know?

I have heard similar comments during a recent LLL meeting I led about nutrition and weaning. We were talking about the practical ways to implement good nutrition and "whole foods" concepts within the family and some moms asked what they could do with all of the extra milk they get from WIC. Several said that they 'just give the foods away' because they 'can't possibly use that much'. 

Perhaps WIC could encourage their breastfeeding moms by offering recipes or even cooking classes or something? Perhaps part of the problem is that the foods offered assume some level of cooking skill and not all young moms these days have kitchen skills that were taken for granted even just a few years back?

Just throwing this out as an idea. ;)

Cassidy, CLC and LLL
Fayetteville, AR (Lactnet counts as studying for the IBCLC exam, right? -grin-)




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